1. Going the Distance

New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig made history on August 17, 1933, when he played in his 1,308th game in a row. He went on to play 2,130 games in a row, a record that would stand in Major League Baseball for more than 50 years. Gehrig was born on June 19, 1903, in New York City. He joined the Yankees in 1923, but didn’t really play until 1925. After an All-Star career, his batting average dropped in 1938, and he became concerned. He eventually saw a doctor, who struggled to find out what was wrong. Doctors finally told him he had a rare disease called ALS. After Gehrig died in 1941, it became known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Researchers at the University of Michigan may have found a way to treat the disease using a kind of cells called stem cells, and other teams continue to search for treatment or a cure. Find a newspaper article about someone dealing with a disease. Read it with a parent and then write a summary.

Common Core/National Standard: Developing a topic with facts, concrete details, examples and quotations related to the topic.

2. Know, Wonder, Learn — About the NFL!

Training camps have begun for the National Football League, and millions of fans are excited. Following football in the newspaper is a great way to build reading skills if you use the approach called Know, Wonder and Learn. With this approach, called KWL for short, you ask yourself questions every time you read something. First, you ask what you already KNOW about the subject. Then you ask what you WONDER or WANT TO KNOW about the subject. Then you read and ask what you have LEARNED about the subject by reading. Practice KWL by finding a short story in the newspaper about your favorite football team in the NFL. Write out what you already KNOW about the team. Then write what you WONDER or WANT TO KNOW about the team. Then read the story and write what you LEARNED about the team by reading.

Common Core/National Standards: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience; making connections between key ideas in texts and students' own lives.

3. Hop on Your Bike!

School bells will start ringing in just a few days for many students, and now is the time to think about how you will get to school. The state of Arizona is hoping more kids will walk or ride their bikes, which would cut down on pollution. In fact, state officials want this so much that they gave out $4.5 million in grant money to 27 different organizations around the state. They also are promoting a program called the “Walking School Bus,” through which groups of students walk to school with an adult, and pick up students along the way to walk with them. Much of the money in Arizona will be used to repair sidewalks and bike paths. Currently only 16 percent of students in the state walk or ride their bikes to school, compared to 42 percent in the 1960s. Find a newspaper article about school transportation. Or find one online. With family or friends, brainstorm ways to get kids to walk or bike to school, and use drawing or computer skills to create posters and fliers.

Common Core/National Standards: Using technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; using drawings or visual displays when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or points.

4. Is That a Martian?

What’s on the planet Mars? Is it like the Earth’s moon? Are there little green Martians living there? Scientists sitting in Pasadena, California, will find out soon, because the NASA rover Curiosity has landed on Mars and beamed back photos of the famous red planet. Cheers erupted when the car-sized rover sent its first images back to Earth to America’s space agency. Curiosity is being called the “first full-fledged mobile science laboratory sent to a distant land,” according to a Reuters article. The rover weighs one ton, has six wheels and is powered by nuclear energy. Landing a rover on a planet using robotics is a remarkable feat. Find a newspaper or online article about Curiosity. Draw a picture of what you think Mars looks like, based on the information in the article.

Common Core/National Standard: Using drawings or visual displays when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or points; knowing the different visual characteristics and purposes of art to convey ideas.

5. More Than One

Tooths. Childs. Foots. Why aren’t those nouns correct? Don’t you just add an “s” at the end of a word to make it plural – meaning more than one? Not always. Some nouns change when you are talking about more than one of them. For example, more than one tooth is teeth, more than one child is children, and more than one foot is feet. And sometimes, you use the same word when you’re talking about one or more than one of something like fish. With family or friends, turn to a page in the newspaper that contains an article that interests you. Circle all the irregular plural nouns you find. Use three in complete sentences.

Common Core/National Standard: Forming and using frequently occurring irregular plural nouns.